Talk With a Mental Health Professional
How I came to this work
My understanding of academic life is shaped not only by research and professional roles, but by how I entered academia myself.
I came into university as a first generation student later in life, completing my undergraduate degree in my 30s and my PhD in my 40s. That experience has given me a practical understanding of what it can feel like to enter academic and research spaces without the cultural familiarity, language, or unspoken knowledge that others may take for granted.
For many researchers, particularly those who are first generation or returning to study later in life, academia can feel like an unfamiliar environment with its own conventions, expectations, and ways of speaking.
Supervision and support systems are often shaped by people who have spent most of their lives within universities, and this can make it difficult to articulate confusion, express worries or even ask questions for fear of looking less competent.
The way I work is to be aware of those dynamics and not assume a single academic pathway, a shared set of reference points, or a particular way of “being” a researcher.
Instead, space is created to acknowledge how background, life experience, and responsibility interact with the research process, and how that interaction shapes confidence, expectations, and decision making.
You don’t need to explain or justify how you arrived where you are. The point is simply to take your experience of research seriously, on its own terms.
How we will work together
In working together, we take time to think reflectively about research and your experience of doing it, alongside — but separate from — formal supervision and institutional requirements.
What we pay attention to, and where we focus, emerges through the conversation rather than being decided in advance.
Rather than focusing on outputs, milestones, or performance, the emphasis is on understanding how you are living and experiencing your research process over time: how questions, uncertainties, pressures, and decisions are emerging, and how they intersect with your everyday life beyond the research itself.
Sessions are conversational and guided by what feels most important to you at that point. There is no fixed agenda, unless you wish to bring your own, and no expectation to arrive with clearly defined problems.
Instead, we work by exploring areas that feel difficult to hold on your own, questions that keep returning, or aspects of your life that are influencing how you experience the research process.
The role of this space is not to judge progress or to direct what you should do, but to support careful thinking and sense making.
For some people, this means working through a specific issue, moment of transition, or period of uncertainty; for others, it’s about having a place where the research journey itself can be voiced without needing to be measured or corrected.
How this fits alongside other support
Supervision remains central to the research process, providing subject specific guidance, academic oversight, and responsibility for decisions about the project itself.
Our work together serves a different purpose. It offers a non assessing space where the broader experience of doing research can be explored — including questions, uncertainties, and pressures that may not easily find room within supervisory or institutional settings.
I don’t intervene in supervisory relationships or advise on what you should do. Instead, our work supports you to navigate existing structures and expectations with greater clarity and confidence, drawing on your own priorities, values, and understanding.
Boundaries and scope
It is not therapy and does not replace clinical or mental health support.
Our work together is focused on how you are experiencing and living your research, and on making sense of that experience over time.
Alongside this practice, I am training as a person-centred counsellor. Once qualified, I expect to offer counselling through a separate practice, with clear boundaries around purpose, role, and expectations.
These ways of working are distinct, and any choice about what kind of support feels appropriate remains yours.
If at any point it becomes clear that a different form of support would be more helpful, that can be discussed openly.
The priority is clarity about what this space can — and cannot — offer, and for you to make decisions that best support your own needs.
Practicalities and next steps
Sessions take place online and are usually one to one. Some people work with me for a small number of sessions around a particular point or decision; others engage over a longer period, depending on what feels useful.
Book an initial conversation
The best place to start is a short conversation to see whether this work feels appropriate for you at this point.